Smitty's response about moving dates around

buckaroo

buckaroo

Here kitty, kitty, kitty
Joined
Nov 14, 2002
Messages
10,767
Points
513
Location
Winston Salem, NC
Here's what Bruton Smith said about ISC's idea of moving dates around.

Responding to a comment that since International Speedway Corp. seems willing to consider swapping dates among its member, why wouldn't SMI: "That's the worst philosophy I've ever heard."

"You want to add tracks and double the schedule? Do what I suggested four or five years ago: Create an American League and a National League, and run two races in different parts of the country each weekend. It would be tough to make happen, but it could be done. That's how you add tracks and dates."

Wow, how about a NASCAR "superbowl"? :)
 
Ya know, in a way that sounds really cool. Have two superbowls, the Daytona 500 at the beginning of the year and someother race at the very end of the year. That would be cool. One series could run short tracks and road courses and the other series could run the bigger tracks.
 
66, I don't believe that's what he had in mind. He would like to see everyone run on the same tracks, but at different times. There would be a couple of races a week, maybe one on a Saturday night and the next race on Sunday. There would be two different leagues with the same rules for each league. With this idea, you could have the same number of races per car, but double the number of races because there would be 86 cars racing each and every week, providing they would still start 43 cars a race. This idea has been bantered around before and there are plenty of pros and cons about the idea. Two superbowls would be great, but as a friend of mine told me, there's no way in hell the season will end on a plate track. Soooo, the championship race would have to be held on one of the other cookie cutter tracks. :)
 
Hmmmm.... USAR Pro Cup is doing this right now on short tracks. It could work in theory, but would there be enough sponsor dollars to go around for the 86 cars? Would fans support 2 races in 2 seperate parts of the country on the same weekend? What would the purse structure be? In a way i like the idea a lot, in another way i don't because it means me sitting in front of the tv for 2 days on the weekend instead of 1. The girl friend would hate me!:rolleyes:
 
I think it could work, but maybe not with 86 cars. They could cut back to say 72 with 36 cars in each race. Sponsorship would be a problem, but the bigger problem would be who would race in which league. Would the big teams have to split leagues or stay in one league? As I said, there are plenty of pros and cons to this idea and I've kicked them around many times before. But this is something that has once again surface with Smith. One of my proposals in the past was to let Smith begin his own series, but to make the thing work, everyone would have to race on every track and if Smitty split with NASCAR, he wouldn't have a chance in hell to race on any of the ISC tracks.
 
Sorry, that would be the most lame brained idea. You guys are forgetting that Winston Cup is having a hard time fielding 43 cars at some events.
 
Originally posted by N2racin88
Sorry, that would be the most lame brained idea.  You guys are forgetting that Winston Cup is having a hard time fielding 43 cars at some events.
Click to expand...
Excellent Point.
 
Originally posted by buckaroo
66, I don't believe that's what he had in mind
Click to expand...

Well, that's just what I thought he was taking about when he said "run two races in different parts of the country each weekend". :)
 
Yeh sponsors might be a problem , although it could work the other way..... this could give the lesser teams a chance to race. Seems wherever there is Nascar people want to get involved. Possibly fielding 36 cars for each "division " might help the problem. Do i like this idea, i don't know .....it sure goes against conventional thinking about the sport. It could be a way like some one said for all the new tracks to get a date, which would give Nascar even more exposure. We all know that getting more exposure means more fans , which in turn means more sponsor dollars and more TV time. I think this concept is quite awhile away from actually being a reality. It could be a solution to the age old problem of spreading the races around and giving the guys more down time in a busy schedule.
 
There have been two leagues before. At one time we had both Winston Cup in the Southeast and Winston West on the West Coast. Both ran the same rules and they even ran combination events at places like Riverside, Ontario, the old Texas Motor Speedway, and some of the Western guys usually came east for Daytona and maybe Talladega.
Herschel McGriff, Clem Proctor, and later, Derrick Cope and Chuck Bown are just a few names that come to mind off the top of my head.
None of the west coast drivers seemed to do very well when they ran with the regular Cup series. They just didn't have the support and number of events each year to support a competitive effort.
 
I vaguely remember the 2 league thing now that you mention it bob. Maybe it should be tested at a lesser level other than the Hooters Cup- USAR. Say like the trucks, it would be the perfect opportunity for them to visit little known tracks and bring a great show.
 
NASCAR is doing some playing around this year as matter of fact.
I haven't read all the details but they are doing some kind of combination deal with Winston West/BGNN and the Southwest Tour/??
I have to wonder where NASCAR feels these lower tier teams are going to find sponsorship to support a venture of this sort. Most of these teams operate on a very slim or non-existant budget and whatever sponsors they are able to get usually are companies involved in the area where the teams operate.
NASCAR has been steadily cutting the television exposure of the feeder series for the last five years, they've increased the amount of travel, thus causing whatever local sponsors who were interested to have second thoughts as to the return value on their investment, and now they want to combine series which run on opposite sides of the country? OR is this just some sort of best accumulated points/finishes deal similar to the weekly series championship program they've had for the last few years?
I guess I better go find the article about it and take the time to read it through.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom